Page 98 of Close Quarter
The woman behind the bar nodded and set to work.
"Cappuccinos," Silas murmured, then shook his head slightly.
"What?"
"Somehow I don't think we'll find what we're looking for at the bottom of a cup." The dry tone, as whip sharp as it was, warmed Rhys's heart.
Good.This was the Silas he needed now, the arrogant one. He handed one of the paper cups over. "Fuel for the road." He took the other.
"If only we had a map."
Rhys glanced over at the entrance to the library. "Librarian."
"What?"
Oh, he'd regret this. "You know, book person. From the Latin?"
Silas choked on his coffee. His expression moved from shock to annoyance, then straight into that smile he got whenever he thought about sex.
Yup. That would cost. But in a good way.
"Come on."
"If we didn't have other plans..." Silas trailed his warm fingers down the back of Rhys's neck.
"I'll hold you to that." But later. Last thing he needed was Silas passed out again. Rhys stepped around two ladies filling out a giant crossword puzzle printed on a table and headed toward the back of the library.
The librarian was a woman with short black hair and three piercings in her left ear. She smiled as they approached. "How can I help you gentlemen?"
Rhys matched her smile. "Well, this is kind of odd, but do you have a map of the ship?"
"There's a digital map on every level by the elevators. Touch screens." Her cheerful tone didn't waver, though creases formed in the corners of her eyes.
"We're actually looking for the ship plans,” Silas said. "My friend was curious to know what all those other decks are used for."
"Oh!" The tightness around her eyes vanished. "There's an old copy of the plans hanging in the aft stairwell between decks eleven and twelve. It's not quite accurate, but it's very close."
"Excellent." Silas sipped his coffee. "Thank you."
"Anything else I can help you with?"
Rhys stifled the urge to ask for a Latin-to-English dictionary. "Nope. Thanks."
He let Silas lead the way to the map. Once off of the main entertainment decks, the crowds thinned down. Only cleaning staff roamed the halls, wiping down banisters, refilling hand sanitizers, vacuuming. The crew must have been working their way down the ship. Once Rhys and Silas climbed past deck ten, they saw no one.
The map--ship's plan--spanned the entire wall of the landing between decks eleven and twelve and included a cross section of the ship and detailed deck plans for every deck--even the ones without any cabins.
"It's huge," Rhys said. "I hadn't thought..."
Silas rubbed his chin. "Well, we can discount all the cabins with windows, I should think. I doubt any of Anaxandros's followers can stand the light."
That made sense. "If only we knew the names they used to board."
"It's highly unlikely they bought tickets."
Silas swirled his coffee cup. "That would require the whole check-in procedure. Photographs.
Passports. Documentation. It's rather a bother."
